Studies of juvenile homicide have been limited to small samples and have arrived at widely varying clinical formulations. The present study of 72 juvenile murderers uses a three-group typology based on the circumstances of the offense. Group differences in prior adjustment suggest distinct developmental pathways to adolescent violence. Implications for research and for legal decision-making are discussed.

The present study examined a comparatively large sample of 72 adolescents charged with murder who were referred for pretrial evaluation in the State of Michigan over a 9-year period. Subjects are compared with a control group of 35 adolescents charged with nonvwlent larceny offenses. Information regarding the adolescents' demographic and social bQckground, and the circumstances of the offense, are presented. Recognition of the diverse motives and circumstances of adolescent homicide may help to explain discrepant churacterizaabns of them presented in the literature.

The objective of this study was to identify factors associated with weapon use in a group of filicidal women. Clinical data were gathered from the charts of sixty filicidal women evaluated at Michigan's Center for Forensic Psychiatry or through Connecticut's Psychiatric Security Review Board from 1970 to 1996. Factors associated with weapon use were determined using chi squares, ANCOVAS, and a logistic regression. Results were compared to national statistics for child homicide from the Department of Justice Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). Weapon was defined as knife or gun for the study. Weapons were used by one of four women in our study. Guns were used by 13% of filicidal women and knives by 12%. Odds ratio showed that psychotic women were eleven times more likely to kill their child with a weapon than their non-psychotic counterparts (11.2; p = .008). Psychosis was present in every mother who killed her child with a knife and in seven of eight women who killed their children with a gun. Younger children were less likely to be killed with weapons (ANCOVA; F = 8.28; p = .006). This finding was independent of presence or absence of maternal psychosis. These results show that psychotic women are more likely than non-psychotic women to kill their children with weapons. They also show that mothers are more likely to use weapons to kill older children than younger children.

Megargee (1970) argued against the global comparison of violent and nonviolent subjects with psychological test data. He contended that clinically meaningful distinctions within groups of violent subjects were critical to elucidating the psychological factors associated with violent behavior. Otherwise, the heterogeneity of violent subjects would obscure differences between nonviolent subjects and violent subgroups.~~ ~

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